Abstract
The chapter provides an overview of the structuralist approaches to economic development. It starts with a review of the contributions of the early structuralists, distinguishing between the European-US strand and the Latin American strand. Next, it describes newer structuralist approaches, that is, formal structuralist macroeconomics, CEPAL neo-structuralism, new structuralism based on technology studies, new developmentalism, and new structural economics, and the closely related approaches of development traps. Following that, it examines the main theoretical ideas of the structuralists, distinguishing between three elements. First, it explains their organizing principles of analysis, which starts with structures of systems rather than with individual units. Second, it discusses how they view the world in terms of the structure of the global economy, structural differences between development and developing countries, and different structures of different developing economies. Third, it discusses the meanings they attach to economic development, emphasizing both growth and distribution. This is followed by a discussion of policies advocated by the structuralists who, in general, take into account the specific structuralist characteristics of particular countries rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach, recommend active state intervention in a flexible manner that promotes the synergy between the state, markets, and society, and address macroeconomic and sectoral issues in addition to microeconomic ones. In terms of specific policies for the contemporary world, it discusses: trade and industrial policies, especially those that seek to develop technological capability and technological upgrading by moving into new sectors; monetary, fiscal, financial and exchange rate policies that promote economic growth and external competitiveness, dampen cycles, and avoid instability; and policies specially aimed at reducing poverty and inequality. It concludes with brief comments on the strengths and possible problems of the approaches and how the latter can be overcome.
I am grateful to Machiko Nissanke and Jose Antonio Ocampo for their useful comments on the style and content of this chapter.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
This is related to what Hirschman (1981) referred to as the denial of the monoeconomics claim, a claim according to which all economies can be examined using the same approach since they are similar.
- 2.
- 3.
This is the Spanish acronym for Economic Commission of Latin America (ECLA) which later incorporated the Caribbean countries and became ECLAC.
- 4.
There need not be a high-level equilibrium, since the curve need not cross the horizontal axis after \( {x}_C \), so that \( x \) increases indefinitely.
- 5.
Furtado actually distances his approach which “stressed the importance of noneconomic parameters in macroeconomic models … [such as] … the landownership system, the control of firms, the composition of the labor force, so on” and how they evolved historically (see Boianovsky 2015), from that of “the French structuralist school, which was based on static social analysis and resulted in the formulation of a ‘syntax’ of disparities in social organizations” (Furtado 1987, 209–10). However, he glosses over the fact that some of his own analysis follows this holistic/structural approach and overemphasizes Levi-Strauss’s synchronic approach to structuralism in social anthropology in which structures are arguably more stable, than on the combination of synchronic and diachronic approaches (which takes into account how structures change over time) as in Saussure’s linguistics and Lacan’s psychology.
- 6.
However, they emphasize other organizing principles, such as, for institutionalists, the idea that institutions “matter”, presumably interpreting some structural characteristic as institutions, and, for Marxists, that class struggle determines the distribution of income between classes, which then affects economic growth.
References
Amsden, A. (2001). The rise of the “rest”. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Amsden, A. (2003). Industrialization under the new WTO law. In J. Toye (Ed.), Trade and development. Directions for the 21st century. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Arndt, H. W. (1985, February). The origins of structuralism. World Development, 13(2), 151–159.
Azariadis, C. (2006). The theory of poverty traps: What have we learned? In S. Bowles, S. Durlauf, & K. Hoff (Eds.), Poverty traps. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Azariadis, C., & Stachurski, J. (2005). Poverty traps. In P. Aghion & S. Durlauf (Eds.), Handbook of economic growth (Vol. 1A, pp. 295–384). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Baran, P. (1957). The political economy of growth. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Bardhan, P. K. (1988). Alternative approaches to development economics. In H. Chenery & T. N. Srinivasan (Eds.), Handbook of development economics (Vol. 1). Amsterdam: North Holland.
Bhaduri, A., & Marglin, S. A. (1990). Unemployment and the real wage: The economic basis of contesting political ideologies. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 14(4), 375–393.
Blankenburg, S., Palma, J. G., & Tregenna, F. (2008). Structuralism. In S. N. Durlauf & L. E. Blum (Eds.), The new Palgrave dictionary of economics (Vol. 8, 2nd ed.). Houndmills/New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Boianovsky, M. (2015). Between Lévi-Strauss and Braudel: Furtado and the historical-structural method in Latin American political economy. Journal of Economic Methodology, 22(4), 413–438.
Bresser-Pereira, L. C. (2012). Structuralist macroeconomics and the new developmentalism. Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, 32(3), 347–366.
Chang, H.-J. (1994). Political economy of industrial policy. Basingstoke/London: Macmillan.
Chang, H.-J. (2002). Kicking away the ladder. London: Anthem Press.
Chenery, H. B. (1975). The structuralist approach to development policy. The American Economic Review, 65(2), 310–316.
Chenery, H. B. (1979). Structural change and development policy. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Dutt, A. K. (1990). Growth, distribution and uneven development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dutt, A. K. (2013). Post-Keynesianism and the role of aggregate demand in development economics. In G. C. Harcourt & P. Kreisler (Eds.), Oxford handbook of post-Keynesian economics (Vol. 1, pp. 568–594). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Dutt, A. K. (2017). Heterodox theories of growth and distribution: A partial view. Journal of Economic Surveys, 31(5), 335–351.
Easterly, W. (2006). Reliving the 1950: The big push, poverty traps and takeoffs in economic development. Journal of Economic Growth, 11(4), 289–318.
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. (1992). Social equity and changing patterns of production: An integrated approach. Santiago: UN, ECLAC.
Evans, P. (1995). Embedded autonomy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Fajnzylber, F. (1990). Industrialization in Latin America: From the “black box” to the “empty box”. Santiago: UN, ECLAC.
Ffrench-Davis, R. (1988). An outline of a neo-structuralist approach. CEPAL Review, 34, 37–44.
Furtado, C. (1961). Development and underdevelopment (Eng. trans.). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964.
Furtado, C. (1965). Development and stagnation in Latin America: A structuralist approach. Studies in Comparative International Development, 1, 159–175.
Furtado, C. (1987). Underdevelopment: To conform or reform. In G. M. Meier (Ed.), Pioneers in development, second series. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Gill, I., & Kharas, H. (2015). The middle-income trap turns ten. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Hirschman, A. O. (1958). The strategy of economic development. New York: Norton.
Hirschman, A. O. (1981). The rise and decline of development economics. In A. O. Hirschman (Ed.), Essays in trespassing: Economics to politics and beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jameson, K. P. (1986). Latin American structuralism: A methodological perspective. World Development, 14(2), 223–232.
Justman, M., & Teubal, M. (1991). A Structuralist perspective on the role of technology in economic growth and development. World Development, 19(9), 1167–1183.
Kaldor, N. (1955–56). Alternative theories of distribution. The Review of Economic Studies, 23(2), 83–100.
Kalecki, M. (1971). Selected essays on the dynamics of the capitalist economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Krugman, P. (1992). Toward a counter-counterrevolution in development theory. The World Bank Economic Review, 6(supplement 1), 15–38.
Lal, D. (1985). The poverty of ‘development economics’. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Leibenstein, H. (1957). Economic backwardness and economic growth. New York: Wiley.
Leiva, F. I. (2008). Latin American neostructuralism. The contradictions of post-neoliberal development. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Lewis, W. A. (1954). Economic development with unlimited supplies of labour. The Manchester School, 22(2), 131–191.
Lin, J. Y. (2012). New structural economics. A framework for rethinking development and policy. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Little, I. M. D. (1982). Economic development. New York: Basic Books.
Love, J. (2005). The rise and decline of economic structuralism in Latin America. New dimensions. Latin American Research Review, 40(3), 100–125.
Meier, G. M. (2005). Biography of a subject. An evolution of development economics. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Myrdal, G. (1956). An international economy. New York: Harper Brothers.
Myrdal, G. (1957). Rich lands and poor lands. New York: Harper Brothers.
Nelson, R. R. (1956). A theory of low-level equilibrium trap in underdeveloped countries. The American Economic Review, 46(5), 894–908.
Noyola Vazquez, J. F. (1956). El desarrollo económico y la inflación en México y otros países latinoamericanos. Investigación Económica, 16(4), 603–648.
Nurkse, R. (1953). Problems of capital formation in underdeveloped countries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ocampo, J. A. (2001). Raul Prebisch and the development agenda at the dawn of the twenty-first century. CEPAL Review, 76, 23–37.
Ocampo, J. A. (2011). Macroeconomy for development: Countercyclical policies and productive sector transformation. CEPAL Review, 104, 7–35.
Ocampo, J. A., Rada, C., & Taylor, L. (2009). Growth and policy in developing countries. A structuralist approach. New York: Columbia University Press.
Palma, J. G. (1987). Structuralism. In J. Eatwell, M. Milgate, & P. Newman (Eds.), The new Palgrave. A dictionary of economics. London: Macmillan.
Palma, J. G. (2008). Theories of dependency. In A. K. Dutt & J. Ros (Eds.), International handbook of development economics (pp. 125–135). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Pinto, A. (1970). Nature and implications of the ‘structural heterogeneity’ of: Latin America. El Trimestre Económico, 37(1), (Eng. trans. In R. Bielschowsky (Ed.), ECLAC thinking. Selected text (1948–1998). Santiago: UN, ECLAC).
Prebisch, R. (1950). The economic development of Latin America and its principal problems. New York: United Nations.
Prebisch, R. (1959). Commercial policy in underdeveloped countries. The American Economic Review, 49(2), 251–273.
Prebisch, R. (1984). Five stages in my thinking on development. In G. M. Meier & D. Seers (Eds.), Pioneers in development. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Rada, C. (2007). Stagnation or transformation of a dual economy through endogenous productivity growth. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 31, 711–740.
Ros, J. (2000). Development theory and the economics of growth. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Rosenstein-Rodan, P. N. (1943, June–September). Problems of industrialization in eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Economic Journal, 53, 202–211.
Sanchez-Ancochea, D. (2007). Anglo-Saxon versus Latin American structuralism in development economics. In E. Perez-Caldentey & M. Vernengo (Eds.), Ideas, policies and economic development in Latin America. London/New York: Routledge.
Seers, D. (1962). A theory of inflation and growth in under-developed economies based on the experience of Latin America. Oxford Economic Papers, 14(2), 173–195.
Sen, A. K. (1999). Development as Freedom. New York: Anchor Books.
Singer, H. (1950). The distribution of gains between borrowing and investing countries. The American Economic Review, 40(2), 473–485.
Solow, R. M. (1956). A contribution to the theory of economic growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 70(1), 65–94.
Streeten, P. (1982). First things first: Meeting basic human needs in the developing countries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sunkel, O. (1960). Inflation in Chile: An unorthodox perspective. International Economic Review, 10, 107–131.
Sunkel, O. (1969). National development policy and external dependence. The Journal of Development Studies, 6(1), 23–48.
Taylor, L. (1983). Structuralist macroeconomics. Applicable models for the third world. New York: Basic Books.
Taylor, L. (1991). Income distribution, inflation and growth: Lectures on structuralist macroeconomic theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Taylor, L. (2004). Reconstructing macroeconomics. Structuralist proposals and critiques of the mainstream. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wade, R. (1990). Governing the market. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dutt, A.K. (2019). Structuralists, Structures, and Economic Development. In: Nissanke, M., Ocampo, J.A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Development Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14000-7_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14000-7_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-13999-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-14000-7
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)